


Hiding

by zarabithia



Category: Backstreets - Bruce Springsteen (Song)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:33:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21895192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Years later, there are many answers to the question of why the friendship was not forever.
Relationships: Terry (Backstreets)/Narrator (Backstreets)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 18
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Hiding

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Midnight_Girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Midnight_Girl/gifts).



The picture had always sat on the shelf, next to a cluttered mess of items collected over a lifetime of dreams realized and forgotten. There was a Met's baseball cap from the first game I took my son to, a wedding photo, diplomas, and trinkets from each of the states we've been fortunate enough to visit. Presents from children also line that old shelf, the that nobody ever really thought about, but still kept on their shelves so that the nostalgia can take over and ruin their entire day. 

There, on the second shelf, nestled between a "World's Greatest Dad" mug and an old "unicorn" that Diana had made when she was in second grade, sat the picture of Terry and me. 

I had lost count of how many times I'd passed by that picture. It had been taken 53 years ago, but the memory of the day only grew sharper as the picture grew duller. 

It took me by surprise when the grandchildren, visiting from California, asked me about it. 

Little Alice had it in her hand, offering it up to me. "Grandad, who is this man?" 

I had been present for Alice's birth, and she meant the world to me. She was here, and very real, but once upon a time, all of those things had been true about Terry, too. 

But staring down into the photo was like looking into a portal into the Wonderland that had captured Alice's mother's imagine so much. The photography of 53 years ago had been so much shoddier than today's magical digital tricks, and the effort it took to get a good picture could not be found on the remaining photograph. 

Two boys looked up at us - Terry with his wild, untamable black hair and his Dylan shirt and me with short-cropped blond hair and plain white t-shirt that could have been any color, as far as the photograph was concerned. 

"He was a friend of mine," I told Alice, which was both my biggest truth and my greatest lie. "From a long time ago." 

"Oh. Do you think about him a lot?" 

"Mm. Almost every day." 

"Well, why doesn't he visit us?"

* * *

How to answer Alice's question? 

An eight-year-old cannot begin to understand the weight of what she had asked, nor could she begin to understand any of the answers I had to give.

* * *

There was answer one. 

In answer one, Terry and I met in the back of a church during a Jersey summer hotter than hell itself. The soft cushions on the pews and the primness of our mother's white dresses would not stand in greatest of contrasts to the ... friendship... Terry and I would have. 

There was answer two. 

"Let's hitchhike to Manhattan," Terry told me, as we sat in the back of my father's car. 

"What is in Manhattan that they don't have in Lawrenceville?" 

Terry, who never had any patience, sucked a long sigh deep through his teeth. "Only everything," he said. 

There was answer three. 

Terry and I were parked in the same lover's spot everyone in town went to, which was pretty daring all by itself. 

Terry's mouth was warm on my neck and his hand frustrated down the front of my barely-on pants, both of us too desperate to be slow. 

"In LA, they don't even have backstreets to hide on," Terry told me as we both did our best to clean up the mess we had made of my dad's backseat. 

"Then where would we do this?" I asked, because at that moment, _this_ was everything. 

"Anywhere we want," Terry retorted. 

There was answer four.  
Terry and I were on the beach, Dylan shirt and plain white t-shirt, while Terry's bassplayer snapped our photograph. 

The bassplayer shook the poloraid while Terry leaned over and whispered in my ear, "Think of the better beaches we'll see when we skip Jersey." 

"I can't imagine any better beach than this," I said, ignoring the wink the bassplayer gave. 

There was answer five.  
I was early, and I watched Terry dance with the bassplayer in a club that used to be _ours_.

I waited, and I listened to Terry's excuses. 

"You don't want to leave Jersey." 

"You aren't ready to be yourself." 

"You would be miserable on the road." 

"We'll always be friends, right?" 

I listened, and I nodded, and I agreed to it all.

There was reason six. 

I was in college, and Terry came home. He spread himself out on the futon of my small apartment, cigaretts and beer more of a presence in his life than they had ever been before. 

Both things _stank_ in a way that Terry never had before; the fresh scent of the beach, the warm scent of too much of his father's cologne, the familiar scent of too much mustard on his hot dogs... all those scents were replaced by a lingering scent of failure and regret. 

"Did you know that they do have backstreets in LA?" Terry murmured to me as the sun came up on his second day back home. "They have backstreets every fucking place and they are all lousy." 

"I have to go to class," I told him. "I'll be back this afternoon." 

"Just stay," he pleaded. "Just stay, this one morning. You can go back to being an accountant or whatever the fuck it is you want to be tomorrow, okay?" 

"You might need an accountant, when you are making all that rockstar money," I told him. 

"I need you now," he argued, and so, I stayed. 

There was reason seven.

Three weeks later, Terry had had enough of Jersey, all over again. 

There was reason eight, nine, and ten. 

Each time, when the world knocked Terry down, and he came home, full of even more despair, and I took him back each time, wives and children be damned. 

There was reason eleven.   
After 1993, I never saw him again. I spent years searching record stores, looking for albums that might hold his face or name, in the hopes that his lack of reaching out meant his world had gotten better, not worse.

* * *

So what then to say to an eight-year-old who cannot begin to understand how important a teenage crush can be, both before and after it crushed your heart? 

"Things change," I told her, which was the kindest lie I could ever tell about Terry.


End file.
